On the morning of Wednesday, September 27th, only three weeks after the 2023-2024 school year began, hundreds of Brooklyn Tech freshmen faced unexpected difficulties entering the building when an attempt to reprint IDs caused the IDs of many freshmen to be deactivated, resulting in long lines and significant disruption.
The delay disturbed classroom instruction, as many students were forced to wait up to 45 minutes to reach their first-period classes. “The teacher did have to pause in class and stop the lesson because of the amount of kids that were missing,” shared Chloe Rim (‘27).
Biological Science major Lucy Ansley (‘25) also expressed, “[My class] had a test in the upcoming week, and that was time that we didn’t use to go over the material, which was an inconvenience.”
For many freshmen, complications continued when they tried to collect new IDs in the lunchroom or auditorium and experienced further delays and frustrations.
“I had to wait outside, and then I had to go to the auditorium to pick up a new ID, but they didn’t have one for me,” said Trinity Burke-Joseph (‘27). “I had to wait until lunch the day after it was first denied to get my new ID after being told to go to the auditorium twice to get it.”
Rim and others also endured longer waits for their IDs as they were distributed alphabetically. “It took me 2 days to get my permanent new ID because of my last name starting with an ‘R,’” she said.
After all the inconveniences, students remain in the dark as to what caused the ID malfunction, leaving them to take their best guesses. “I don’t know why my ID was denied access but rumors speculated saying that our old IDs were only temporary and were going to expire anyway,” said Daniella Aimufa (‘27). Ms. Iacono, the Assistant Principal of Health and Safety, stated that this is not the case.
Ms. Iacono explained that the cause of the ID malfunction was an attempt to reprint freshmen IDs with photos, resulting in the sudden deactivation.
The ID situation left some new students, like Burk-Joseph, with lingering concerns. “The experience didn’t really change my perspective because Tech already seemed pretty disorganized from what I’ve seen since the first day of school. I got my schedule changed a few times, but I wasn’t notified by my guidance counselor or anyone,” she said.
Other students, however, felt the administration did the best it could given the circumstances. “This incident changed my perspective of Tech’s organization because a lot of students were able to get their new IDs the day right after, which shows how they put student life as their top priority,” Rim noted.
Ms. Iacono expanded on this point, stating, “I feel that our school aids at the door did everything they could with the challenges that we were faced with, and the deans all went up during lunch periods to help distribute ID cards.”
